Opportunities In Space Businesses Are Bullish On Manufacturing In New Frontier

November 11, 1985|By Tim Smart of The Sentinel Staff

Few markets offer the opportunity of space. The competition is minimal, there are no established territories and the prospects for financial reward are unlimited.

Because of this, large and small businesses are lining up for the opportunity to research or manufacture products in space. But learning the language of space and mastering the contractual difficulties of doing work for NASA has spawned an industry of its own. It is an industry that is closely allied with Central Florida, home of the Kennedy Space Center, from which many of the presently scheduled experiments and commercial launches depart.

Recently, several hundred people gathered in Orlando at two separate conferences designed to spread the word about the possibilities of space business. In both instances, the mood was bullish. The repeated successful launch of the space shuttle is bringing a down-to-earth quality to the concept of making goods in an orbit hundreds of miles above the earth's surface.

''There are economies of location having your operation or plant near the Cape,'' said David Gump, president of Pasha Publications Inc., a Virginia newsletter publisher that hosted a forum on space manufacturing last week in Orlando. ''Anything that you want to launch you're probably going to want to check out on the ground first.''

Gump said he has noticed a change in the attitudes of people attending his company's conferences.

''We have broken the imagination barrier,'' he said. ''Two years ago the chief impediment was that people didn't accept the idea. Now businessmen are willing to ask people in their company, 'Do you have any projects that are feasible in space?' ''

Marc Vaucher, program manager for the space station at the Center for Space Policy in Cambridge, Mass., said space business will break down into four areas: materials processing, servicing other space operations, life science research and space-related testing and development. He advised companies interested in using the space station to contact NASA and be involved in the early planning of the system.

''NASA wants to hear from you,'' Vaucher said. ''They are interested in understanding what the needs of users are.''

Maxime Faget, who is head of a company that plans to build a factory in space, identified some likely candidates for space manufacturing as gallium arsenide crystals for use in semiconductors, fiberoptic communications equipment and interferon.

Faget's Space Industries Inc. has announced plans to build an ''industrial space facility'' which would be half way between the existing space shuttle and the planned space station. The concept has been likened to building an industrial park in space. Workers would reach the factory by the shuttle but would use the shuttle as their home away from home while performing experiments at the facility. In contrast, the space station is seen as a durable work and living area in space.

Faget has said he would assemble his factory in Brevard County. He told an audience in Orlando that Space Industries has been contacted by companies that include the Big Three automakers, chemical giant Monsanto Inc. and weapons maker Martin Marietta Corp.